Give Thanks in All Circumstances

Good morning again, we are continuing with our daily Bible reading and short Bible study.

My name is Keith Foskey, I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church.

I began this yesterday as a way to try to reach out to our congregation, family and friends, anyone who would like to do a daily devotional Bible study.

This is in conjunction with a reading series that we began at the beginning of this year where I handed out a list of daily Bible readings and those daily Bible readings are New Testament only and they are in chronological order, not Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, but in order that we believe the books were written.

Now we're using the Grace To You outline for that, I know there's some debate over when certain books were written.

So we started out at the beginning of the year with what we believe was the first book written in the New Testament and at this point we are at the book of 1 Thessalonians.

That's where we are now.

Now if you want a copy of this reading list you can go to our website sgfcjax.org and you'll see under the posts our 2020 reading plan.

Now there will also be a link in the description of this video below if you want to go find that reading.

Today we are in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and before we read I want to make just a few mentions of a few things.

One, I did this video yesterday and I had someone ask me why the headphones? Well the reason why I'm wearing the headphones is because I'm in my wife's studio.

This is where she teaches English as a second language to Chinese students and we set the studio up for her earlier this year and it's been very helpful.

The sound is good in here but if I don't use the headphones it creates sort of an echo with my voice and I want the sound quality to be as good as it can.

So I know I look a little silly wearing these big headphones and eventually I may get a better microphone but for now if you'll just bear with me this is the best way to do this to get the best sound quality.

I want to remind you also that I'm hoping that this will fall into conjunction with your own family worship.

I did a sermon last Sunday on the subject of family worship and really that's what this is about.

As the pastor of the church I want to be a resource not only on Sunday mornings but all throughout the week to be able to help you in your family worship.

So what I'm basically doing is I'm trying to show you how I would go through the text and pick out things to teach on and learn about because I know that you as parents especially who are leading your children want to be able to do this.

And so I'm going to show you something very quickly before I read.

I'm not reading from my Bible.

What I've done is I've taken the text that we're going to be looking at today and I've printed it out with my computer.

Now doing it that way allows for a couple of things.

One, it allows me to blow it up real big so I can see it but it also allows me to write on it.

You'll notice that there's writing on the page and that allows me to take notes and connect things.

I'm looking for the who's, the nouns and the pronouns.

I'm looking for the what's, the verbs, what's happening, the action of the text.

I'm looking for the why's and the how's and the commands and the imperatives.

And so that's what I'm doing.

I'm making little notes.

If I did this in my Bible it would destroy my Bible because the pages are thinner, there's not much of a margin and I know some of you have Bibles that you do write in and that's fine.

But even if I had a Bible I wrote in I wouldn't do it like this because to me it's a worksheet to just work through the text and I find it to be very helpful.

So if you think that that would be helpful for you, take and copy and paste the text from a website, paste it into a Word file or a Pages file if you have a Mac and print it out and write on it and make yourself notes.

And use this for your family study.

Use this for your personal study.

Make yourself a notebook and keep up with these.

Sometimes I actually preach from pages like this.

When I go and I preach at Set Free on Thursdays often times all I have is a page that looks just like this.

And to anyone else it looks like just scribbling but to me it makes sense because I've worked through the text mentally and I know what I'm looking at.

And this Sunday I'm going to actually preach a sermon on how to study the Bible for yourself and so I'm going to go through a little bit more in depth as to how I go through this process.

So without any further delay let's go looking at the text.

Today we're in 1 Thessalonians 5.

Yesterday I talked about what the book of 1 Thessalonians is about, who it was written to and where Thessalonica is and those things.

So if you're interested you can go back to yesterday's video.

Alright beginning at verse 1.

Now concerning the times and the seasons brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

While people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman.

They will not escape, but you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

For you are all children of light, children of the day.

We are not of the night or the darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

For those who are asleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and a helmet of the hope of salvation.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him.

Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Now verse 12, We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

Be at peace among yourselves.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything.

Hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who calls you is faithful, He will surely do it.

Brothers pray for us, greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

And that ends the book of 1 Thessalonians as well as the chapter.

Now I don't want to try to give an exegesis of all of this chapter and certainly as you are looking at this chapter you may see some things that you want to go in and focus on, but I'm just going to give you a few thoughts as you're working your way through.

Number 1, verses 1-11 we see the comparison that Paul is making between those who are in darkness and those who are in the light, those who are facing the wrath of God when Jesus returns and those who are going to be destined to be saved.

That's the phrase he used, he says God has not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the blessing of being in Christ is that we do not have to fear Jesus' return.

When He comes and when He splits the eastern sky we don't have to be afraid.

We don't have to fear the coming of our Lord.

We can wait for it with hope and expectancy and not with fear.

But for those who are not in Christ there should be great fear and this is why the gospel is a command to turn from sin and turn to Christ and that way you have no reason to fear death and you have no reason to fear the end when Christ will return.

Now there is something else to notice here in verses 1-11.

It says in verse 8, We belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation.

Now that's a comparative verse that we could look at if we had time over in Ephesians 6 where Paul talks about the armor of God.

Now in Ephesians 6 he gives a very explicit detail of the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth and the shoes of peace and the helmet of salvation and the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit.

This is, he doesn't say the same thing here.

What's interesting is he calls this the breastplate of faith and love rather than the breastplate of righteousness.

And what we're seeing here is just that this is not a hard and fast analogy.

The armor of God, some people make a huge deal about the shield represents this and the breastplate represents this and I think those analogies can stand well but the point is it's not a hard and fast analogy.

Ultimately those things can be interchangeable and we can see how faith and love can be our breastplate as well as righteousness.

And so that's just a good way to compare scripture with scripture.

You can see Paul using this analogy in Ephesians 6 as well as here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

Now the verse that I really want to focus on, like I said there's so much here, you could talk about how he's telling us to respect our leaders in verse 12 and I do think that's the elders that he's referring to there because he talks about those who labor over you in the Lord and admonish you.

That's not referring necessarily to the government even though we are told to be good citizens and to obey the ones who put over us.

This is talking about those who serve in the church, those who are laboring in the word of God and Paul is saying respect them and esteem them highly because of their work.

That's something that all believers are called to do is to appreciate those who labor in the word of God.

But the one section that I really wanted to focus on and I'm going to try to get through this quickly is if you notice beginning in verse 14 we see what seems like a shotgun of several little miniature admonitions, little mini exhortations if you will.

It starts with the phrase and we urge you and he says admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all, see that no one pays evil for evil but always seek to do good to one another.

These are little miniature imperatives and it's just boom, boom, boom, rapid fire.

And the one that I think we should focus on today because this is important for all of us is in verse 18 when he says give thanks in all circumstances.

Now in the Greek it actually says in ponte which means in all and then Eucharist which is give thanks.

So it literally says in all give thanks or in all thanksgiving.

And that word Eucharist or Eucharistete, you probably heard the phrase Eucharist before you know and such as in Roman Catholicism they refer to the participation in the mass as the Eucharist.

Eucharist simply means Thanksgiving or the giving of thanks and it's this verse is telling us that no matter what the situation that we are in we need to be able to in Christian maturity understand that God is working in this situation and that God is to be thanked in the situation.

Even if it's in a difficult situation and I'm reminded of Romans chapter 8 which tells us that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him.

That means even the difficult things.

That means even the hard things.

That means even in the midst of a global health crisis God is going to cause all things to work together for the good of those who love him.

And so we ought to be able to give thanks in all circumstances in all Thanksgiving.

And so I would like for you today to consider how can you give thanks to God today in your circumstance.

I'll tell you right away I'm thankful for the technology to be able to do this that I'm doing right now.

And I'm thankful that many of you who are having to stay at home are able to still connect via technology and many of us even though we're in this time of sort of sequestering and social distancing many of us are comfortable in our homes with food and air conditioning and access to the internet and entertainment.

This is certainly not anything like you think of a hundred years ago in the time of the Spanish flu.

There were times during that time churches were closed and the pastors couldn't get the word out.

They couldn't preach except for those who would leave their churches open of course and defy what was being asked of them.

But ultimately there was no kind of technology to reach people.

And so we live in a time where there's an amazing amount of ability for us to stay connected and certainly that has created some issues too and I know some of you may feel like that sometimes this ability to connect does more harm than good.

And that's a conversation for another time.

But what I'm saying is if you're able to listen to this and you're able to be blessed by it and if this is helpful to you then I would just say giving thanks for technology and the ability to do this.

The ability to work from home.

Some of you have jobs that have forced you to be home and be thankful that God has given you the ability to do that.

The next thing I would say I would want to be thankful for myself is I'm thankful for time with my family.

Our kids are not going to remember this the same way we do.

I read something this morning online that I thought was very helpful.

It said our children are going to remember this differently because we're going to remember it as a time when there was a lack of toilet paper and there was a hoarding of things at the grocery store and it was difficult to buy things.

But the kids are going to remember this as a time when they were with mom and dad more than they had been before.

They're going to remember this as a time when they were doing crafts and playing games and going outside and sitting around the table and having a meal.

This to them could be a real blessing if we treat it as such and use the extra time that we have with them in a very positive way.

I'm also thankful and I want to say I'm thankful today for the people who are working in the midst of all this to try to make things better.

For my friends who are nurses and doctors and nursing assistants, I know many of you are working extra hours and you're working in dangerous situations and I just want to say I'm thankful for you.

I'm thankful for the effort that you put.

I'm thankful for truck drivers because they're the ones who are keeping the store shelves stocked as well as possible and the ones who work at the stores, the people of Walmart, the people of the different stores, Publix and Winn-Dixie and wherever you are, maybe a Kroger or something.

That is a blessing that we have people who are continuing to work, people who are carrying mail, people who are working at gas stations.

I'm thankful for them.

When Paul admonishes here, give thanks in all circumstances and all Thanksgiving, then I pray that today that you would take a moment to be thankful for all that God has given you in the midst of this crisis and even if things are bad, even if you're facing something really difficult, even if you're sick, even if you're hurting, even if you financially have lost, I would encourage you that the Bible tells us to give thanks in all things and that doesn't mean to give thanks only in the things that are good, but as we are reminded in James that we ought to take joy even in our trials because our trials are what God uses to produce maturity and patience in our faith.

So I pray this has been an encouragement to you now.

I would also pray that as you look down toward the end of this chapter that you not practice verse 26 right now and if you go through and read it, you'll see what I'm talking about and hopefully you'll get a little smile out of that.

I want to pray for everyone and then I'm going to close the webcast.

Father God, thank you for this opportunity to look over your word.

I pray that it's been helpful.

I pray that we would all have the maturity of faith to be able to give thanks in all things.

I thank you God for you are the God who creates all things and you are the God who sustains all things by the word of your power and you are the God who has decreed the end from the beginning and therefore we can trust that you're working all things together for your glory and our good and we give you praise for it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Until we meet again, God bless you.